topology and artifacts

juanoblagu

I have always wonder what these artifacts are in maya, usually you don see these in marmoset or substance but i need to show my work in maya for work, at the end of the sleeve you can see this diagonal in some of the faces, i tried unlocking or averaging but nothing works, hardening the edge  is necesary? even if im baking the normal? plus the edge there in the high poly is smooth so it should look hardened, i wouldnt really want to add topology to this. Any input is more than appreciated

gnoop

Make  inside edge loop  split /hard / with split vertex normals / whatever they call it in Maya and slide it up front a bit   as well as  having uv seam there too You would be able to make  the sharp looking edge rounded by  a normal map too.

juanoblagu

gnoop said:

Make  inside edge loop  split /hard / with split vertex normals / whatever they call it in Maya and slide it up front a bit   as well as  having uv seam there too You would be able to make  the sharp looking edge rounded by  a normal map too.

something like this? it looks a bit better, but im still worried about the shadow that forms in the half of the faces, not sure if thats gonna bother me only in maya

Alex_J

Try the "Soften/Harden Edge Tool", which you can access from Shift + RMB marking menu when the object or edge components are selected.

The default option is 30 degree threshold, which means anything over 30 degrees is made hard, and anything less is soft. I believe that default setting should give you appropriate looking shading here.

juanoblagu

Alex_J said:

Try the "Soften/Harden Edge Tool", which you can access from Shift + RMB marking menu when the object or edge components are selected.

The default option is 30 degree threshold, which means anything over 30 degrees is made hard, and anything less is soft. I believe that default setting should give you appropriate looking shading here.

alright, i think i had a misconception, that when im doing an organic model, clothing, body, face, every edge should be soften, im gonna try using that tool and see how the bake does

pior

Well, overall this topic is really quite complicated ... mostly because there is just so much partial (and sometimes straight up incorrect) information out there.

Now in your particular case here the Maya shading (according to the default Maya shading calculation, which is *not* standard compared to other apps, as Maya 2009 introduced face-weighted normals by default out of nowhere) is telling you that it is going to have trouble here : 



This is because the vertex normal calculation is heavily influenced by the long faces next to it. Putting a hard edge on the inner side of the sleeve tube would indeed relax it ; but so would the addition of one more edge loop, near the end of the sleeve, on the inside and the outside.

It will also be extremely important that you make sure that the triangulated edges are *exactly* consistent between baking and the final game asset. Whether you make sure of it by triangulating everything on the model itself or through precisely controlled export/import settings is up to you. 

Using hard edges is certainly valid, but it being practical will depend on the robustness of your pipeline, and the way other people involved (if any) respect proper export/import settings.

okidoki

Hmm.. isn't this the usual smoothshading issue when done on 90 degree edges.. 
..also: even if this is for a low poly character the sleeves may be a little thick (mine now maybe too thin ) ? And may should have those inner geometry trick which overlap with the arms in the final object composition ? (Ohhh and this is in blender..)

juanoblagu

pior said:

Well, overall this topic is really quite complicated ... mostly because there is just so much partial (and sometimes straight up incorrect) information out there.

Now in your particular case here the Maya shading (according to the default Maya shading calculation, which is *not* standard compared to other apps, as Maya 2009 introduced face-weighted normals by default out of nowhere) is telling you that it is going to have trouble here : 



This is because the vertex normal calculation is heavily influenced by the long faces next to it. Putting a hard edge on the inner side of the sleeve tube would indeed relax it ; but so would the addition of one more edge loop, near the end of the sleeve, on the inside and the outside.

It will also be extremely important that you make sure that the triangulated edges are *exactly* consistent between baking and the final game asset. Whether you make sure of it by triangulating everything on the model itself or through precisely controlled export/import settings is up to you. 

Using hard edges is certainly valid, but it being practical will depend on the robustness of your pipeline, and the way other people involved (if any) respect proper export/import settings.

well i tried goin with the hardened edges way but the bake just looks weird at those hard edges 
seems like i will have to add loops at the end (inside and outside) even tho i didnt want to add more topology but, yeah it works.

-* and about the last reply, i might try doing them less thick but the inside isnt totally 90 degrees

pior

Well as always with this topic, the issues come from a factor being not taken into account. Here it's the fact that most bakers will treat a hard edge as a split in the rays being cast, unless forced otherwise by a cage. But there is also a limit to what one can control anyways, since baked textures can't ultimately make a perfect circle match with a polygonal shape. Here with 12 edges you are at the limit.

That said my recommendation would be as follows : one more loop near the end of the sleeves, on the outside and the inside ; or perhaps one more loop at the end of the sleeve, and a hard edge on the inside, but that'd a bit ... unnecessarily splitting at straws really.

Your worry about adding these loops is completely irrelevant. Baking isn't just about projecting a high onto a lowpoly model kept as low as possible. It is mostly about understanding how both work together, and crafting your model accordingly. Baking is also not the be-all end-all of developping such assets. Allow yourself for some back and forth and experiments.

One important thing too is to make sure that your actual mesh looks good even without baking. The very first picture you posted already gave you plenty of information about that, and what to fix. Already at this stage you knew that your shading needed help to resolve the end of the sleeve cleanly.

Of course it is near impossible to grasp all this out of nowhere. A great way to learn is to study work done by Nintendo/Sega on the most high quality Switch titles, like Mario Odyssey, Smash Ultimate, or the latest Sonic game. Not only is the model below very clean, but it is also using some clever approaches for detail using tiling UVs, and so on. Sculpting the whole thing as a high and then hoping to get a clean bake directly from that is probably the opposite of what they did here.

juanoblagu

pior said:

Well as always with this topic, the issues come from a factor being not taken into account. Here it's the fact that most bakers will treat a hard edge as a split in the rays being cast, unless forced otherwise by a cage. But there is also a limit to what one can control anyways, since baked textures can't ultimately make a perfect circle match with a polygonal shape. Here with 12 edges you are at the limit.

That said my recommendation would be as follows : one more loop near the end of the sleeves, on the outside and the inside ; or one more loop at the end of the sleeve, and a hard edge on the inside.

Your worry about adding these loops is completely irrelevant. Baking isn't just about projecting a high onto a lowpoly model kept as low as possible. It is mostly about understanding how both work together, and crafting your model accordingly.

One important thing too is to make sure that your actual mesh looks good even without baking. The very first picture you posted already gave you plenty of information about that. Already at this stage you knew that your shading needed help to resolve the end of the sleeve cleanly.

Of course it is near impossible to grasp all this out of nowhere. A great way to learn is to study work done by Nintendo/Sega on the most high quality Switch titles, like Mario Odyssey, Smash Ultimate, or the latest Sonic game.

i guess another thing i could do is to add 2 loops to make it look rounder, what would you say a good edge count would be? i have been looking for the game ready assets of famous videogames but could really find that much.

pior

Well it's tricky isn't it, because an "oldshool lowpoly" model (say : Ape Escape/Kingdom Hearts PS2 era) wouldn't need much geo at all (under typical game engine rendering of that era), because the shading would be very soft and even a polygonal-looking trim in the texture at the end of a sleeve wouldn't be shocking. Yet using the same geo on a baked asset would quickly break down and not look right, unless *perhaps* using some very strict UVs and handpainted normalmap trims.

Mario Odyssey and Smash really are great references IMHO. Splatoon and Arms aswell.





Also keep it mind that is very possible to develop such assets *without* any high to low baking. If the ingame model is cleverly crafted, all you need is a bumpy edge around UV islands. This basically means that such a model can be made over a few days and be directly usable in engine on day one, as opposed to wasting hours and hours on a sculpt that never really gets used for anything more than surface details.

juanoblagu

pior said:

Well it's tricky isn't it, because an "oldshool lowpoly" model (say : Ape Escape/Kingdom Hearts PS2 era) wouldn't need much geo at all (under typical game engine rendering of that era), because the shading would be very soft and even a polygonal-looking trim in the texture at the end of a sleeve wouldn't be shocking. Yet using the same geo on a baked asset would quickly break down and not look right, unless *perhaps* using some very strict UVs and handpainted normalmap trims.

Mario Odyssey and Smash really are great references IMHO. Splatoon and Arms aswell.





Also keep it mind that is very possible to develop such assets *without* any high to low baking. If the ingame model is cleverly crafted, all you need is a bumpy edge around UV islands. This basically means that such a model can be made over a few days and be directly usable in engine on day one, as opposed to wasting hours and hours on a sculpt that never really gets used for anything more than surface details.

first i wanted to say thank you for the input you are giving me! and for the modeling of the characters, im sculpting some detail that will need to be baked so yeah, im just curious of what are the standards of edgeloops in say sleeves of pants and shirts, i gues i just ned to put more topology in order to not look like models from wow (but even in those the textures dont really look jagged) i need the models to look as smooth as that mario or the dress you sent but without much topology.

pior

You're welcome - good luck !